Qualla: HMS Nelson (28)

HMS Nelson (28): Introduction

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Royal Navy members, Public domain. On 29 September 1943, General Dwight Eisenhower and Marshal Pietro Badoglio signed the Italian surrender in the wardroom of HMS Nelson, anchored off Malta. Two years later, on 2 September 1945, the Japanese forces in northern Malaya formally surrendered aboard the same ship at George Town, Penang. No other Royal Navy vessel hosted the capitulation of two Axis powers. Built to meet the impossible constraints of the Washington Naval Treaty, mocked as one of the 'ugly sisters' and the 'Cherry Tree class' (cut down by the Washington axe), Nelson outlived her critics and ended the war as the most diplomatically distinguished battleship in the British fleet.

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Image: Royal Navy members | Public domain

HMS Nelson (28): A Treaty Battleship

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Priest, L C (Lt), Royal Navy official photographer., Public domain. When the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 capped battleship displacement at 35,000 long tons, the Royal Navy had to redesign from scratch. The result was the Nelson class: a smaller, slower battleship version of the cancelled G3 battlecruiser, with all three triple turrets of nine...

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Image: Priest, L C (Lt), Royal Navy official photographer. | Public domain

HMS Nelson (28): Two Mines and a Torpedo

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Andy Dingley (scanner), Public domain. Nelson's war began badly. On 4 December 1939, three months into the conflict, she detonated a German magnetic mine at the entrance to Loch Ewe on the Wester Ross coast, the same Loch Ewe that would become the assembly anchorage for the Arctic convoys. The mine blew a ten-foot hol...

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Image: Andy Dingley (scanner) | Public domain

HMS Nelson (28): Malta, Sicily, Salerno

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire), Public domain. Between her injuries, Nelson worked. From mid-1941 onwards she escorted Malta convoys through the most dangerous stretch of the Mediterranean, when the island was on the edge of starvation and the Royal Navy was the only thing keeping it supplied. In November 1942 she covered Ope...

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Image: Agence Rol. Agence photographique (commanditaire) | Public domain

HMS Nelson (28): From Quarterdeck to Target

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY-SA 3.0. After her Philadelphia refit, Nelson sailed for the Eastern Fleet, arriving in Colombo on 9 July 1945. She supported Operation Livery against Japanese forces along the Malayan coast. When the Japanese garrison at George Town, Penang, formally surrendered on 2 September, the cerem...

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Image: CC BY-SA 3.0